


A Friend in Need is Qrow Indeed

by Aspire_to_Inspire



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Taiyang is a Good Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspire_to_Inspire/pseuds/Aspire_to_Inspire
Summary: After losing Summer and Raven, Taiyang focuses everything he has left on his precious daughters, while Qrow wears himself thin with fights, missions, and alcohol. But when a battered Qrow shows up late one night, he discovers there's still a place for him in Tai's home...and his heart.





	A Friend in Need is Qrow Indeed

Taiyang Xiao Long was a man of many skills—pranks, tasteful flirting, hand-to-hand combat—but he was most proud of his dad skills. One such skill was his ability to, within a second of waking, realize that the hand on his arm and the voice in the dark belonged to his youngest daughter. He further deduced with cunning speed that she was upset—did he detect fear?—and that he needed to fix it immediately.

“What's wrong, sweetheart?” he said, erasing the sleep from his voice. He was usually a far more sluggish person to rouse, but never when Dad Mode had been activated. His eyes quickly adjusted to see his little rose with both her tiny hands knotted in the front of her ladybug pajamas.

“Daddy,” she said hesitantly, “Uncle Qrow is on the floor downstairs.”

With those words, Taiyang's concern morphed into exasperation. His former teammate didn't often impose himself on Taiyang's home, but it still wouldn't be the first time he'd stumbled in on unsteady legs to crash on his sofa. Tai knew, as alcoholics go, Qrow had managed to remain pretty functional around the kids, but that didn't stop the bite of irritation as he got up and took Ruby's hand.

“I'm sure he's fine, sweetie, just show me where he is.” Ruby, clearly unconvinced, tugged him out of the room and down the stairs. The moonlight filtering through the curtains revealed, to his surprise, his brother-in-law sprawled face-down at the base of the steps. Taiyang's concern made a sharp comeback. He'd found Qrow having fallen off the couch before—and one time curled up in front of the fireplace—but this almost looked like he'd been trying to get upstairs.

Taiyang set his jaw, mindful of Ruby's round eyes on him as he bent over her uncle. He already didn't like the idea of her seeing this if Qrow was just passed out smelling of liquor; he liked the idea even less if it turned out to be anything more serious. So Taiyang lay his hand on Qrow's back to make sure he was still breathing, disguising the gesture as one of fondness, then turned to Ruby with a gentle smile.

“Don't worry,” he whispered kindly. “He's just asleep. His last mission must've really wiped him out.” Ruby looked uncertain, but too trusting to doubt him. He gave her raven hair a pat. “You should get back to bed. Daddy will take care of him.”

“But...can I help?” He forced a cheerful grin.

“That's very nice of you, but I think Uncle Qrow might be a bit embarrassed, don't you? Really silly of him to fall asleep on the floor like that; I bet he'll be all cranky about it. Why don't you go back to bed and we can tease him about it in the morning when he's not so grumpy.” Ruby giggled into her hands and nodded, reassured, then tip-toed back upstairs.

“Try not to wake your sister,” he whispered after her, then waited until he heard her door shut before turning his attention to Qrow.

The scruffy hunter didn't look that bad—a little worse for wear with his clothes rumpled and dirty, but that was to be expected after a mission. There were no obvious tears or stains indicative of wounds, but when Taiyang grabbed his shoulder and tried to shake him awake, he didn't stir. A quick sniff and the discovery of Qrow's still-full flask told Tai he probably wasn't hammered, but even when Taiyang turned him over there was still no obvious evidence of injury. Despite his better nature, Taiyang couldn't help scowling.

“Still living up to that superstition, I see,” he muttered, wrapping the other man's arm over his shoulders and hefting his weight. How could someone built so lean still be so heavy? At least he didn't have that monstrous sword weighing him down; that told Tai he'd had the presence of mind to leave it outside behind the flower bed, as per Summer's rules (after all, any mother would have found the sight of her baby sitting in her uncle's lap, chubby hands wrapped around the handle of a scythe-blade twice her size, a bit unsettling). At the time, Tai had deferred to her judgement with a great deal of amused laughter. Now, the rule that had outlived its maker made him ache for the days when the idea of Qrow hurting his family had still been a laughing matter.

Qrow showed signs of life just as Taiyang was lowering him onto the couch. His hand grabbed at Tai's arm with icy-cold fingers as he squinted up at him.

“Tai?” Taiyang forcibly removed his hand and let him drop back onto the cushions.

“Yeah, it's me,” he sighed. “What are you doing here, Qrow?” The other huntsman didn't seem to hear him, trying and failing to sit up.

“Ruby?” he called into the dark. “ _Ruby?_ ”

“Pipe down!” Tai shushed him. “She's not here, she's upstairs.”

“But I saw...I thought I saw--”

“She _found_ you, Qrow. On the floor. In my house. At night.” Tai's voice was thick with reproach.

“She's okay?” Qrow demanded. “She's not hurt?” Tai sputtered.

“Of course she's not hurt, she's fine. What's you're deal, are _you_ hurt--?” Qrow almost toppled off the couch seizing at Tai's shoulders.

“And Yang?” The edge of fear in his voice took Tai by surprise. “Is Yang alright?” Tai raised his hands placatingly.

“Qrow, listen: _they're both fine._ Okay? Calm down.”

His brother-in-law blinked at him for a moment, then let go. “Thank the stupid _gods_...” he muttered, sinking back into his position only half on the sofa and throwing one arm over his eyes. Taiyang sat down on the coffee table and stared at him, noticing he had the sleeves of his shirt rolled all the way down for once.

“I'm sorry, Tai,” Qrow was saying. “I shouldn't have come, I know that. But I couldn't...I wasn't thinking straight.”

“Heard that one before,” Tai said bitingly, but Qrow just moved his arm to his forehead and stared up at the ceiling. “You can make it up to me by _talking_ straight. What happened?”

Tai waited impatiently, but Qrow just kept staring. His other hand fidgeted, probably wishing for the familiar weight of his flask.

“You usually tell me when you're going on missions, you know,” Taiyang pressed. “I had to find out from the directors at Signal that you were gone. 'Barely an errand' they said.”

“It was for Oz,” Qrow said at last. “So...things got a little complicated.” Tai frowned.

“You get hurt?” he asked levelly. Qrow nodded without looking at him.

“A bit, yeah. Didn't want the girls to see it.” Without Tai having to prompt him further, Qrow flipped the unbuttoned cuff on his left arm up to his elbow. Starting at mid-forearm and disappearing under his sleeve were thick, jagged lines. Angry red but not breaking the skin, their shape formed an odd pattern that resembled light at the bottom of a pool.

Taiyang frowned at it, unsure of its severity. “How much of it is there?” Qrow said nothing, only rolling his sleeve back down, and Taiyang began to suspect there was a reason he also had his collar turned up to hide his neck. “What happened?” he asked sternly.

“There was a mission here in Patch.”

Tai choked. “Here? Wha--”

“One of our enemies' newest strays,” Qrow cut in flatly. “She had a volatile semblance, and didn't take kindly to being controlled. We thought we could help stabilize her, maybe find out what she knew. But she got violent. Oz sent me to...stop her.”

Both men sat in silence, Tai with his head bowed and heart heavy, then he looked up at the huntsman and asked, “Is she...?”

But the answer was all over Qrow's face, drawn and lifeless like a man beaten. Taiyang shuddered from the grief that hung in the air between them. “What did she do?” he asked much quieter.

“She went after her brother in front of a crowd, threatening to kill him and anyone who got in her way. I tried to talk her down, and it almost worked. Got the bystanders out of the way, got her brother away from her...but then she just lost it and I...I couldn't get her back.”

“What was her semblance?” Tai asked carefully.

“She could connect her aura to yours. It was like bolts of lightning had touched when she did it, and she directed all the damage away from herself.”

Taiyang's lips parted in surprise. “She... _burned_ you with your own aura?”

“That's about right,” Qrow said absently, as though the topic bored him. Tai sat up straight.

“Show me all of it,” he ordered. A glint of something contrary surfaced in Qrow's eyes, a memory of _Are you supposed to be my hot nurse?_ and _Please, I've survived far worse without your fussing,_ but he levered himself into a sitting position, nearly biting his bottom lip clean off doing it, and got to work on his buttons.

Taiyang hissed at the ugly wounds concentrated on the center of Qrow's chest. They snaked out to his neck and shoulders, down his arms, across his ribs and around to his back, dark and deep. The pattern made more sense now that he knew what had happened: it followed the same lines an aura did when it died. Except instead of dying, Qrow's aura had burned him from the inside out.

Taiyang swept aside his sympathy, attempting to hold onto his chillier, more practical demeanor. “Be right back. Sit still and don't do anything _I'll_ regret.”

He returned with rolls of bandages and several painkillers Qrow tossed back dry. He popped open a tin of salve and scooped out a glob with his fingers. “You get started with that. I'll get the ones on your back.”

Qrow frowned at it. “You don't need to waste that stuff on me.” Taiyang rolled his eyes.

“This 'stuff' is meant to, you know, _heal wounds_ , and _you_ happen to be the only idiot covered in them.”

Qrow snorted gruffly, but gave the substance a reluctant poke. Some combination of his tribal upbringing and his stubborn nature made him think that proper medicine was meant only for the direst of emergencies, not superficial wounds—certainly not his own, anyway. Of course, the twins had always disagreed with Summer and Taiyang about what qualified as “superficial”; judging by how Qrow almost jerked right out of his seat when Tai touched his back, Tai was confident this did not.

“Hold still,” he scolded. Qrow glared over his shoulder at him, which Tai magnanimously ignored. He kept his hand moving lightly, the skin unusually cold under his fingers. Despite his attitude, Qrow began to gingerly apply the medicine as well. When he'd finished, Taiyang reached around to grab the wider roll and secured it snuggly just below his ribs. Qrow sucked in a breath.

“Not so tight!” he protested.

“You'd prefer it fall off?” Tai shot back. He did his best to be quick and careful, but he could sense the tension singing through Qrow, hands fisted in the sofa cushion beneath him while his jaw worked. Tai pinned the binding in place and sat down to bandage his arms, but Qrow yanked away from his touch with a yelp as red energy crackled along the dark lines. Tai froze, concern spiking, as Qrow cradled his arm, breathing heavily. More red light flashed up his neck, and he gagged.

“Qrow...” Tai said slowly. “Is your...is your aura _gone_?” The huntsman didn't respond, staring blankly ahead in obvious pain. Taiyang pressed a hand to his pallid face. “You're _freezing_.” That confirmed it: Qrow's aura hadn't just burned, it had burned _out,_ which explained why he'd been unconscious and why his skin felt like ice. But at least _some_ measure of his aura should have been back by now...

Qrow apparently didn't have the energy to comment as Tai, with a renewed sense of urgency, finished wrapping his arms and neck, trying and failing to prevent more flares. As soon as he let go Qrow sagged so suddenly his head bounced when it hit the couch.

“Qrow!” Tai bent down to eye level with him. “You still with me?”

The huntsman's eyes were half-lidded, breath hitching as his aura continued to spark.

Tai swore as he shifted Qrow's legs up on the couch next to him, then swore more colorfully when it finally dawned on him what was happening. He made a run for the hall closet, seizing blankets and cocooning them around his frigid teammate. Gods of Remnant, why hadn't he realized...?

_He hasn't tried to suppress his semblance in years,_ Tai thought to himself bitterly. _Not since Team STRQ._

Tai wrapped his hands around Qrow's fingers. “Cut it out, Qrow” he scolded. “Let your aura regenerate. Those wounds run deep and we both know the damage you'll take if you don't let yourself heal.”

Qrow peered up at him blearily, but his reply was clear: “I can't.”

“You can and you will,” Tai snapped. “Stifling your aura may weaken your semblance, but not for long; not unless you plan on letting yourself _die_ on my sofa.”

Snarling at Tai's rebuke, Qrow tugged his hand from his grip and tried to push himself up, but immediately fell back with a sharp cry. Arcs of red light shot across his skin as he grit his teeth and squirmed. Another slice of urgency surged up Taiyang's spine.

“Why won't you--?”

“You know why!” Qrow spat venomously. “Because I killed her! I _killed_ her, Tai!” Taiyang reached out toward him again, generic platitudes automatically falling from his mouth.

“It wasn't your fault, you had to--”

“No, I _didn't_! I didn't have to! I didn't even _mean_ to! That's why he sent me, why he said I was the only one who--” He made a terrible choking sound, sinking his teeth into the blankets to muffle another cry.

The truth settled crushingly on Taiyang's shoulders. He knew at once what Ozpin's thought process would've been...

“ _The power to control aura, to leave the body weak and regular semblances useless...”_

What his logical, _apologetic_ conclusion would've been...

“ _We need to come at her with something she can't control...”_

Something like a bad luck charm.

“She just _fell_ ,” Qrow said in a whisper laced with self-disgust. “Stepped backward and tripped. Hit her head on the edge of a fountain.” He made a noise of revulsion at the sheer absurdity of it. “She went out like a candle. Like she'd never even been alive.”

Taiyang lay his hand on Qrow's trembling shoulder. _**Gods**_ _, Ozpin, what have you_ _ **done?**_

“I don't remember what happened next,” Qrow went on. “I..I just _hurt_ , and I couldn't _think..._ I thought somehow my semblance had...that you or the girls were...” He swallowed. “I had to be sure, and I thought...with my aura dead...I wouldn't do any more damage.”

Taiyang kept his sigh internal this time. Of course that's what Qrow had done. He remembered the first time the huntsman had come back from one of Ozpin's reconnaissance missions with eyes empty and staring; how he'd barely bothered to string more than two words together when Raven deserted them; the way he drank with a grim sense of purpose after Summer died. When Qrow hurt too much, he did anything to shut down his mind, bending entirely to the will of his aching heart. But Qrow rarely indulged his emotional responses for long, and Tai could already tell from his uneven gasps that he was reaching his limit holding back his aura.

“Qrow, come on now,” he said firmly. “Stop being a baby about it, okay?” Tai attempted a show of confidence—something that had been far easier in his youth. “Nothing's going to happen; the girls and I will be fine.”

A sideways glance was the only indication Qrow gave that he was grateful for Tai's effort to be nonchalant. Taiyang kept his hand clasped firmly on Qrow's shoulder as he struggled for several minutes to level his breathing. Finally, his brow furrowed slightly in concentration, and his aura rose to the surface, a red light rich and vibrant. Qrow's fists clenched as the light saturated his body and his wounds responded, surging with the energy they'd been denied. An involuntary noise of relief escaped him as he melted bonelessly into the sofa.

Tai waited for the aura fade before he pulled the blankets tighter around his teammate. “And now,” he announced. “You will not be moving from this spot until you've had some descent rest.” Qrow immediately started squirming against his wooly prison.

“No, I...can't stay now,” he protested. “It's dangerous-”

“I _know_ that, Qrow!” Tai snapped. Qrow went quiet, but set his jaw stubbornly. His red stare bid Taiyang to remember that it wasn't that simple, that there were _rules_ about this...a great number of which Tai himself had invented. Damn, it was so much easier to play the bad guy when Qrow wasn't hurt; the avian was usually so good at concealing what it cost him to keep and be kept at arm's length.

“I know distance is necessary, Qrow,” Tai said softly. “And I usually have to ignore how much it hurts you. But I don't want to ignore it tonight, okay? Don't ask me to.”

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Then Qrow averted his eyes and sank back down.

“...I miss STRQ.”

Memories flooded Tai, bittersweet, bringing him back to the academy, to the team, to missions and classes and tournaments, when love and loyalty had been simple and the wideness of the world had seemed tantalizing. But they just as easily returned him to all the secrets and arguments and losses that had taken all of that and more away from him. He could only imagine how Qrow must long for that brief time when his semblance had been merely a catalyst for dangers which they had already been prepared for...that is, before Ozpin had raised the stakes.

Taiyang had never been overly offended by the fact the Ozpin had kept secrets, but he also hadn't been entirely convinced by the high expectations he placed on Team STRQ. But Raven and Qrow had accepted responsibility as Ozpin's scouts, and Summer already had the power of the silver eyes tying her to a remarkable destiny; Taiyang certainly wasn't about to let any of them do anything without contributing his uttermost to keep them safe.

The four of them together still hadn't been enough. Tai shut his eyes.

“I know.”

They stayed that way for a long time, silently willing their different wounds to heal. Just when Tai was certain Qrow had succumbed to sleep and was about to get off the floor and do the same, Qrow's tired voice drifted up from the couch.

“Do you think you'll be able to forgive me, Tai?”

His back went rigid. “For what?” he asked evenly.

“You know what, Xiao Long. We both know what's coming—what your girls are going to end up in the middle of.”

“Never,” Tai snarled, but not just at Qrow: out into the blackness, out and far away to whatever evil was waiting.

“Ruby is Summer's daughter,” Qrow said, and between her mother's spirit and those damning eyes, that was explanation enough; Ozpin had yet to find out about her inheritance, but Tai knew it was only a matter of time.

“And Yang is yours,” Qrow went on. “She won't be leaving her sister for anything. So when it happens, I'll need your forgiveness for...whatever part I play.”

“And your semblance?” Tai bit at him. Qrow flinched.

“There'll be much worse things to worry about,” he mumbled.

“And you won't _make_ it worse?” Tai snapped. The other man turned a pleading look on him.

“I have to hope, Tai. I have to believe that they'll be strong enough.”

Tai's gut twisted at the idea of needing your loved ones to be strong to just _tolerate_ your presence, but that couldn't overcome the instinctive urge to strong-arm his girls as far away from Qrow and Ozpin and all their enemies as humanly possible.

“I'll be careful,” Qrow vowed, determination mixed with something more vulnerable. “I'll tell them about my semblance and let them choose. I'll leave the second I become more harm than good.” He leaned forward, hand over his heart. “I know my place, Tai. On my life, I swear I'll _never_ prioritize myself over their safety.”

Tai could hardly stand to look at him. It seemed perverse that Qrow was sitting there making a declaration that should have been eager and earnest, that should have been credited to him as loyalty and selflessness, that Tai should have received with gratitude—but instead he sounded desperate, his speech a plea for leniency that Tai granted only with great reluctance, knowing Qrow was forever a single misstep away from causing something Tai might never bring himself to forgive.

But not yet. Not just yet.

He pulled the blanket back in place around Qrow's shoulders, adding a light squeeze to the action.

“Thank you.” Qrow stiffened at first, but settled into the touch with more ease than someone of his rough-and-tumble nature might have been expected to, betraying that affectionate/abrasive contrast that made him so...crow-like. Tai's anger shifted to Ozpin, reminding him that it was Ozpin who'd done this, who'd taken advantage of Qrow's semblance for a mission that ended with a girl dead and Qrow halfway behind her, carrying enough guilt to drown lesser men. Tai was already dreading what would happen when Qrow discovered his missing flask.

Tai often wondered what would have happened to him if he hadn't had raising his daughters to keep him sane. Would he have fled with Raven to stay by her side? Shared Summer's fate? Drunk himself to death? He knew for certain he wouldn't have stayed the course out of loyalty to Oz, or for any heroic ambitions, and he accepted that without shame. The fight had chewed him up and spat him out, devoured one lover and driven another away. It was older, bigger, and blacker than any of them, and it still had Qrow firmly between its teeth.

Taiyang could only hope with every fragment of his heart that at the very least, when the monster came after his daughters, he wouldn't have to watch it kill them.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback is good feedback to this author. Thank you for your kind attention!


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